STATUS: Querying
SYNOPSIS: Hollywood, 1948. Sci-fi novelist and aspiring screenwriter, Sidney Becket, gets her first scripting assignment for a major studio. It’s an adaptation of an acclaimed mystery novel that’s rocketed to the top of the bestseller lists. And to top it all off, she’s being teamed with one of America’s greatest living authors, Henry Grierson, who’s been slumming it out here in Tinseltown for almost two decades. But things get complicated when this mismatched duo finds a major plot hole in the source material. As their deadline looms, the two try to track down the elusive author behind the mystery to get some answers. They soon discover, though, that this supposed work of fiction is anything but. And the plot hole they’re looking to fill leads to a very real unsolved murder—and a killer who will do anything to stop them from digging any deeper.
GENRE: Historical mystery
TARGET AUDIENCES: Historical mystery lovers, fans of Raymond Chandler, readers who enjoy stories set in the Golden Age of Hollywood
INSPIRATION: The inspiration for this novel came from my deep affection for the 1946 film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, as well as a long fascination with its famous unsolved murder—chauffeur Owen Taylor. I set out to create my own fictional world where the unlikeliest of amateur detectives (inspired by Leigh Brackett and William Faulkner, the real-life screenwriters for The Big Sleep) could definitively resolve a similar kind of plot hole. And in the process, I wanted to see how they’d react to a few more dead bodies, double-crosses, and blackmail thrown their way.
COMPS:
Books: Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot meets Anthony Marra's Mercury Pictures Presents
TV/Films: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Barton Fink, Adaptation